Disclosed herein is a blend of poly(arylene ether) and an aliphatic-aromatic polyamide.
Poly(arylene ether)/aliphatic polyamide compositions are widely used and the characteristics of the compositions are a result of, at least in part, the characteristics of the poly(arylene ether) and the polyamide. Despite their wide use compositions employing aliphatic polyamides can suffer from drawbacks such as undesirably low dimensional stability, and high moisture absorption. Attempts have been made to improve the physical property profile by altering the polyamide structure to include aromatic elements to form an aliphatic-aromatic polyamide. However forming blends with poly(arylene ether) and some aliphatic-aromatic polyamides has proved problematic. Some aliphatic-aromatic polyamide can only be processed at temperatures above the degradation temperature of poly(arylene ether). Other aliphatic-aromatic polyamides have low reactivity, making the formation of a blend with stable morphology problematic. Poly(arylene ether)/polyamide compositions have a multiphasic morphology and the distribution of the disperse phase has an impact on the physical properties of the composition. One solution has been to use aliphatic-aromatic polyamides with an amine end group content greater than 45 micromoles per gram of polyamide. However, this approach is limited to these materials and there remains a need in the art for poly(arylene ether)/aliphatic-aromatic polyamide compositions formed from aliphatic-aromatic polyamides regardless of amine end group content and methods of making such compositions.